I'll let you into a litle secret. Viv and I both like this song, have done for a while but blow me we couldn't remember who had made it. An almost surreal video, similar landscapeas as "dreaming" but we discovered it purely by chance.

Had Seven Seas of Rye at the back of my mind, punched it in and this popped up by OMD and knew right away we had struck pay dirt.

I think it's a cracker actually. Good stuff.

What can you say. Their best one then, their best one now, terrific. Beat group, r and b band, into the world leaders in rock. Jagger still one of the best group front men in the business. Charismatic on stage.

Let's have a look for some one-hit wonders - and I guess Johnny Ferguson fits the bill. This was from 1960 and his only success in the charts.

In fact I'm exhausted going through the google imputs for Johnny Ferghuson. Not much on our friend here - plenty on a Canadian hockey player of the same name and the lyrics to Angela Jones but can't find anything useful on our Mr Ferguson.

I do know there was a British cover by Michael Cox, who seemed to specialise in covering American hits I remember.

Great band and this was a classic from 1978. They made so many good records. With Credence Cearwater just about my favourites.

Theyoriginally started as Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show - a pop-country rock band formed around Union City, New Jersey in 1969. There the band's earliest incarnation played many small clubs around the 'Transfer Station', an area of bars and restaurants advertising live music.

The founding core of the band consisted of four friends—George Cummings, Dennis Locorriere, Ray Sawyer, Billy Francis—who had played up and down the East Coast and into the Midwest, ending up in New Jersey one by one, with invitations from founding band member George Cummings.

Told by a club owner that they needed a name to put on a poster in the window of his establishment, Cummings made a sign: "Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show: Tonic for the Soul." The name was inspired by the traveling medicine shows of the old West.

To this day, frontman Ray Sawyer is mistakenly considered Dr. Hook because of the eyepatch he wears as the result of a near-fatal 1967 car accident in Oregon.

This was released on Columbia in 1957 and is one of the hit records of the time I can remember which everyone seemed to like. Good stuff but of course I had to look up the group on Wikipedia as I can't remember anything else by them.

Johnny Duncan was born in Michigan where he grew up and his style may have owed a lot to the fact that he was an American and could therefore carry a country and western style with more confidence than could most of his British contemporaries.

He had been stationed in England with the US armed forces during the early 1950's and as a result had fallen in love and married an English girl. After returning home for a while after demobilisation, he decided to return and settle in the UK with his new wife.

John had learned the guitar during his childhood and had developed a passion for American country music while in his teens- thus having some experience of playing in small groups from that time. His first engagement in the UK came with the Chris Barber Band after a brief audition.

However, this coupling did not last long before Duncan had broken away, gained his own backing musicians and a recording contract with Columbia. His second release "Last Train To San Fernando" perhaps fell into the same railroad category as the earlier skiffle classics "Rock Island Line" and "Freight Train".

Despite, or possibly because of, this the British public loved it and sent it almost to the top. It was narrowly held back from the very top spot by 'Diana', sung by a very young Paul Anka. However, paradoxically perhaps, unlike Lonnie Donegan and Chas. McDevitt, Duncan never got much recognition in his native US.

The group went on to score two further, much less memorable, hits in quick succession. Unfortunately, Johnny Duncan was unable to find another substantial hit to consolidate himself as a long term recording artist.

Despite this the group remained popular for a long time after interest in his big hit had waned- probably aided by regular exposure on BBC radio's "Saturday Club" where his falsetto output could be listened to on most weekends.

Although, he had no further hits he carried on producing good singles for Columbia over the next three years. He then switched recording companies as most artists did after a long absence from the chart- then unlike most other artists- he returned to his original label, Columbia.

Perhaps Johnny Duncan's distinctive style became a handicap that made it difficult for him to produce a new 'sound' that would once again attract record buyers. In any event, by the mid-1970s Johnny Duncan decided that his future no longer belonged in Britain and he resettled in Australia. Johnny Duncan died in 2000 aged 68.

 .

.

I'm not a big country and western fan but there are certain songs which strike a chord and this is one of them.

Don Williams, born May 27, 1939 in Floydada, Texas, is a country singer and songwriter. He grew up in Portland, Texas, and graduated in 1958 from Gregory-Portland High School. After seven years with the folk-pop group Pozo Seco Singers, he began his solo career in 1971, singing popular ballads and amassing seventeen No. 1 hits.

His straightforward vocals, soft tones, and an imposing build earned him the nickname "The Gentle Giant" of country music.

Colony Collapse Disorder is causing honey bees around the world to die without explanation. Backyard beekeepers and experts describe the relationship between humans and bees, how CCD is impacting colonies, and how everyone can help their recovery.

A Cumbrian bee-keeper Alan Tett from Holme is trying to do his little bit to boost the bee colony in our part of the world but it really is a massive problem.

If you turn to our General News section there's a news item about Alan, his project in south Cumbria and what's happening to the world's bee population.

Although not known as a major force in the history of rock and roll, Brian Hyland  (born November 1943) did record three notable songs before his pop music success declined after 1970.

He was one of several young American teen idol recording artists whose clean-cut image and sound thrived in the early 1960s, prior to the stylistic changes brought about through the "British Invasion" led by The Beatles in 1964.

In 1960, Hyland scored his first and biggest hit single at the age of 16, "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini."  Hyland's other major hit during this period was 1962's "Sealed with a Kiss." That song, which remains a perennial oldies radio standard, reached 3 in 1962 on both the American and UK Singles Chart. Another 1962 hit was "Ginny Come Lately," which reached 5 in the UK.

During his prime of life, Brian Hyland appeared on national television programs such as "American Bandstand" and "The Jackie Gleason Show" and toured both internationally and around America with Dick Clark in the legendary "Caravan of Stars." The caravan happened to be in Dallas, Texas on the day of the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. Hyland watched the President and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy pass by in the motorcade minutes before the bullets struck. Brian had borrowed a camera from tour singer Bobby Vee but forgot to remove the lens cap and thereby missed the opportunity to photograph Kennedy just prior to his assassination. That evening the Caravan concert was canceled as the nation mourned. To commemorate the event, Hyland wrote the song "Mail Order Gun" which he recorded and eventually released on his 1970 album.

In 2006, Hyland continued to tour internationally with his son Bodi, who assists on drums from time to time.

As of 2007 Hyland currently performs at Dick Clark's American Bandstand Theater on the strip in Branson, Missouri. He can be found on-stage during the "Original Stars at American Bandstand" show along with Fabian, Bobby Vee, Chris Montez and The Chiffons.

This was a bit special because I remember seeing them live at the ABC Carlisle on a big bill which included the Kinks, Chuck Berry and the Graham Bond Organiation. I can still get a shiver down the spine recalling these three walking on stage. I think they were sexy before the word came of regular use in the British language.

The Ronettes were a girl group of the 1960s from New York City, best known for their work with producer Phil Spector. They consisted of lead singer Veronica Bennett (a.k.a. Ronnie Spector), her sister Estelle Bennett, and their cousin Nedra Talley. Their defining album is Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes Featuring Veronica from 1963, and their most famous songs include "Be My Baby", "Baby, I Love You", "(The Best Part of) Breakin' Up", and "(Walking) in the Rain".

They split in 1966 while Ronnie was later divorced acrimoniously from Spector - starting a lomg and bitter financial feud.

We're gpoing back to 1970 for this one which was easily Dave Edmuinds' bighgest hit.

As a young teenager Edmunds played with a band called the 99ers and in the 'Heartbeats' with his older brother Geoff . The first group that he fronted was the Cardiff based 1950s style rockabilly trio 'The Raiders', along with Bob 'Congo' Jones on drums and John Williams on bass, that worked almost exclusively in the South Wales area.

In the late 1960s, the band shifted to a more blues-rock sound and renamed as the short lived 'The Human Beans', playing mostly in London and on the British University circuit.

In 1967 the band recorded a cover of "Morning Dew" on the Columbia  label that failed to have any chart impact. Soon after the remnants of Human Beans formed a new band called Love Sculpture that again reunited Edmunds, Jones and Williams as a trio, who scored a quasi-novelty hit by reworking Khachaturian's classical piece "Sabre Dance" as a speed-crazed rock number, inspired by Keith Emerson's classical rearrangements. "Sabre Dance" became a hit after garnering the enthusiastic attention of British DJ John Peel.

After Love Sculpture split, Edmunds had his UK number one single with "I Hear You Knocking", a Smiley Lewis cover, which he came across while producing Shakin' Stevens and the Sunsets' first album entitled 'A legend'.

The recording was the first release on Edmunds' manager's MAM Records label. This single also reached 4 in the U.S., making it Edmunds' biggest hit by far on either side of the Pond. Edmunds had intended to record Wilbert Harrison's "Let's Work Together," but when he was beaten to that song by Canned Heat, he adapted the arrangement he intended to use for it to "I Hear You Knocking", producing a highly original remake.